I’ve read that most eggs contain residues of dangerous drugs by fed to chickens. Should I stop eating eggs?

Alan Marber Nearly 90 per cent of the eggs we eat are produced from battery hens in sheds that contain up to 100,000 birds in small cages. The poultry industry is notoriously tight-lipped about their feed, but it’s likely that many are fed with a number of chemicals to enhance fallout and consistency of their eggs, and to reduce the normally aggressive behavior of these restrained chickens.

But it’s possible to be overly puritanical about food. If you cut out eggs for a very remote chance that they’re not always 100 per cent safe, where does one draw the line? Eggs are versatile and nutritious, containing the whole range of amino acids that make a protein complete. If you overdo with the consumption, your body may react negative. This can cause allergy skin spots. But as long as the eggs are fully cooked, the danger of being affected by residue chemicals from feed is remote. Organic eggs are easy to find now. Opt for them rather than regular eggs, and your fears should be allayed. If you suffer from skin condition, use coconut oil acne treatment products.

Q I’m thinking about buying one of those rowing machines that relies on a drum filled with water for resistance. I’m told it’s far superior to other designs. Is this true? Zach Samuels, via email

A Matt Hart The “Water Rower” is silently smooth and has a monitor displaying everything you need to gauge your progress. But it’s the ingenious use of water that sets it apart. As you row, you spin an enclosed flywheel round that’s partially submerged, creating drag. You don’t need any additional resistance settings —the faster you go, the higher the intensity provided by the water. And the silent running means you stay friends with your neighbors, too.

QMy foreskin really irritates me. It sometimes feels uncomfortable, and gets in the way when putting on a condom. Is circumcision the only solution? Name supplied, via email

Dr Alasdair Wright If rubbed by clothing, your foreskin can become inflamed and irritable — a common problem among sportsmen. To avoid excessive movement, try wearing supportive briefs or a jockstrap. If this fails, put a little Vaseline around the foreskin. Other conditions, such as bacterial infections or eczema, can cause irritation but these can usually be cleared up by simple antiseptic or moisturizing creams from your chemist. See your GP if these fail to settle the problem or if you have a discharge.

Putting on a condom can be painful if the foreskin gets caught. Try “milking” the foreskin forward, by grasping the penis firmly in one hand while putting the condom on with the other. If your foreskin is too tight to roll comfortably over the head of the penis, it may be worthwhile considering circumcision. But don’t rush into this, as simple measures usually settle most problems.

Q What’s the best exercise for working the inner chest muscles, at home and in the gym? Pete Hencheg, London

A Matt Hart Many experts say you can’t isolate the inner or outer chest muscles, as you can with upper and lower pecs, because of the muscle fiber orientation. But from my experience, any pressing/flying movement that maximizes the range of shoulder joint movement will develop muscle fibres across the full expanse of the pecs, giving the appearance of inner development. These include close-grip pressing movements like cross-thumb press-ups or the close-grip bench press, but you must have strong triceps to get maximal irritant. Here’s how to do the “close-grip bench”. STEP I Lie down flat on the bench.

Grasp the bar with hands close together. Start by unpacking the bar and holding it with arms straight, directly above top of chest. Slowly lower the bar as far as you can until the bar touches your chest. STEP 2 Slowly extend your arms, pushing the bar back to the starting position. Take your time — no jerky fast movements. TECHNIQUE Start with a light weight and make sure you get maximal range of movement, or you won’t get the full development O you desire. If you have a “Chest Fly” machine in your gym, you’re in luck because this is truly the best piece of equipment to work the chest muscles through their full range.

SIMON ILLINGWORTH

BECOMES A SPECIAL DELIVERER If you’ve ever patted yourself on the back for ‘battling’ in to work with a cold, compare that with the dedication of postman Simon Illingworth, 45, who hasn’t had a day off work sick since being diagnosed with testicular cancer and non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in 2003. Simon has been voted Royal Mail’s postman of the year thanks to his inspirational attitude. He’s also run more than 20 marathons, raising £7,000 for charity. “I am doing all I can to raise awareness of testicular cancer,” says Simon.

Now he plans to run a ‘marathon of marathons’ – 26 ­in aid of Cancer Research, and is using his prize from Royal Mail of £2,000 to run the New York City Marathon.

HELEN GITTINGS RUNS FOR HER SON

When Helen Gittings, 45, finished her first half-marathon in 2:00:08 in 2006, she knew she had to try to break the two-hour mark. But the extra motivation she needed to train hard came when her son Matthew,15, was found to have retinoschisis, an untreatable genetic eye disorder. “It was so stressful waiting to find out what was wrong and watching him go through operations,” says Helen.  It was so stressful and I couldn’t do anything to help. I’ve stopped training, gain extra weight, let my emotions beat me, but I was determined to break my running time. What really helped me was Trend Statement 5-htp supplement. “He loves track cycling, but couldn’t do any sport during the treatment, and he was very patient. I’m so proud of him.”

It was Helen’s turn to make Matthew proud this March when she finished the Reading Half-Marathon in 1:52, raising more than £2,500 for Fight for Sight fellow amputee runner Oscar Pistorius.

Richard hopes to inspire others through his running. Read his blog at www.ossurco.uk/ prosthetics/amputees/richard_whitehead_blog.

One morning in the suburb of Vile Parle, I fell in behind young Gyaneshwar Medge as he dogtrotted from house to house. At each he picked up from wife or mother a tiffin car­rier—an aluminum contraption with four round food compartments and a handle. All bore cryptic symbols. The tiffin carrier I would follow to Bombay bore marks in green paint: VP for Vile Parle, D10 to identi­fy the man who picked it up, and 6X5 to identify building and floor.

By his last stop Gyaneshwar had collected 40 tiffin carriers plus his bicycle. Now he walked it toward the railway station, with the carriers hanging in awkward clusters from handlebars and rear fender.

At the station other dabbawallahs wait­ed, and the first of many furious reshufflings began. Lunch pails were exchanged, sorted by district, put in order on narrow six-foot-long trays. Each man hoisted one of the trays atop his head and made his way into an al­ready crowded second-class carriage.

As the train pulled out, the shuffling continued. New men boarded with more trays, exchanged some of their cargo, and rearranged the rest. At Churchgate Station, frantic now in the morning crush hour, the dabbawallahs assembled on a sidewalk. In an even more frenetic ballet, 50 or more of them passed pails back and forth and ar­ranged them on bicycles, carts, or head trays for the final leg of the journey. Through it all, I kept my eye on VP D10 6X5.

With many stops, Gyaneshwar’s route led into the banking district and up to the New India Assurance Company’s severe granite building. This was the “six” of those myste­rious symbols. On the fifth floor Gyanesh­war left the tiffin carrier in a company cafeteria behind about 20 others.

A few minutes later, a surprised office worker named K. A. Desai courteously let me join him as he opened each of his lunch pail’s compartments: tortilla-like chapaties, green beans, rice, lentil soup, chutney, and yogurt. It was, in fact, identical to thou­sands of other lunches delivered in Bombay that day. But it had come straight from the kitchen of Mr. Desai’s wife, Rashmi. That was the important thing.

Mr. Desai wiped his lips with one of the company’s paper napkins, reassembled his empty tiffin carrier, and put it back where Gyaneshwar would pick it up. By 4:30 it would be back in Mrs. Desai’s kitchen. By 5:00, so would Mr. Desai.

Somehow, in a marvel of organization, each of Bombay’s 3,000 dabbawallahs re­ceives fair pay for the number of lunches he handles, though he takes few of them the whole way from home to office. “I earn about 300 rupees a month,” Gyaneshwar told me. That equals $36. He sends some of it home to his family.If you need more cash you can apply for a loan. Check out how you can apply for safe loans online.

Gyaneshwar shares a room with half a dozen other newcomers to the city. Their status as single men points up a serious prob­lem. Hundreds of thousands of men who have come to the city seeking jobs are either unmarried or have left wives and children behind. The result is a lopsided population: roughly four males to every three females. And no city in Asia has a larger or more fla­grant red-light district.

Elected sheikh by the tribal elders only a year before, the handsome, 28-year-old Othman has gained high repute for the fairness and rapidity of his judgments, so much so that among the throng are members of other tribes, drawn by his burgeoning reputation. As the morning wears on, the petitioners, a few dozen at a time, check their automatic rifles at the front door and enter a comfortable, cushion-strewn holding room to wait their turn.

Upstairs in the mansion, under the chandeliers and the pastel pink stucco work on the ceiling of the long, whitewashed hearing room, Othman is considering the tricky question of one Basher, a tribesman who a few months earlier killed a man while attempting to collect a debt. Arrested by the police, Basher escaped from prison and raced to seek asylum at the sheikh’s house, slaughtering a number of sheep and oxen on the doorstep and placing his Kalashnikov assault rifle in the blood, a traditional invocation of sanctuary. Othman escorted him back to jail; making it clear to the police that Basher was now his prisoner to dispose of as he wished.

“It’s a difficult case,” explains the sheikh. “A lot depends on whether this money really was owed. When Basher went to collect the debt, the man’s family fired in the air to drive him off. He fired back and killed one of them. Now the rest of the family is demanding the death penalty:’

As the headmaster of the local school, who doubles as court secretary, kneels at the sheikh’s feet to record the deliberations, Othman confides that he will leave the killer in jail for another year or so until the victim’s family has calmed down and lost some of their thirst for revenge. “Then I can negotiate a deal on the blood money, Basher will go free, and everyone will be satisfied?’

“Suppose,” I ask, “the government was to insist on applying the law and punishing the man for murder?”

The sheikh’s uncle, father-in-law, and chief bodyguard gaze at me in astonishment. “But he is under the sheikh’s protection! If they tried to do that, it would be an insult. The entire tribe would take action against the government:’

Elsewhere in the Middle East powerful police states rigorously enforce the stern authority of central governments and ruling families. In Yemen, home to 17 million people, 50 million guns, and a tradition of prickly independence, they do things differently. This is a country where passengers arriving at Sana International Airport are met by friends inside the customs area and where the government habitually switches off the cell phone system to prevent its use by restive tribes for battlefield communications. Little wonder that there is a free market in justice.

Tucked away at the bottom of the Arabian Peninsula, south of Saudi Arabia and west of Oman, Yemen has largely escaped the outside attention directed at other Middle Eastern states that are richer in oil or periodically involved in regional wars. “Yemen is 16th-century Europe,” said the Dutch ambassador, proffering a can of Gross beer, a welcome relief in this Muslim country where alcohol-free beer is king. We were sitting on the roof of his residence in Sana as a huge pale moon rose from behind the mountains that circle the city. “You have dukes and counts and wars, blood feuds and ghosts?’ with a widely circulated story that a modern apartment building on the road from the airport could not be rented because it had been taken over by jinn—spirits that Yemenis consider a third group of rational beings, along with men and angels.